Bellbird is an Australian soap opera serial broadcast by the ABC created and co-written by Barbara Vernon, it screened for 10 seasons between 1967 and 1977, and spanned 1,697 episodes.
Bellbird screened from 28 August 1967 to 23 December 1977 and although it was not Australia's first television serial (the first was Network Seven's Autumn Affair), it was the first successful soap opera and even spawned a feature film and tie-in novel.
While the series plots concentrated mainly on small-scale interpersonal, domestic and local relationships, issues and conflicts, there were occasional moments of high drama.
When Ramsay decided to leave the series in 1968, his character was written out in dramatic fashion, with Cousens plunging to his death from the top of a wheat silo.
The death scene has figured prominently in retrospectives of great moments in Australian television, and its celebrity meant that it became one of the few segments from the early years of the series that has survived.
[5][failed verification] The show was based on a short treatment by Colin Free then developed by original story editor Barbara Vernon.